Mass exodus?

Manchester City began what promises to be a period of
extensive transfer activity when they sold Ben Thatcher to Charlton Athletic
yesterday in a deal worth £500,000. Stuart Pearce hopes to spend the money on
new recruits but first he must prevent a larger exodus of players, with City in
danger of becoming the Premiership club who lose the most in the transfer
window.
Three successive league victories may have lifted Pearce's team into
the top half of the Premiership table but behind the scenes it is proving to be
an unsettling month for Pearce, with no progress in the club's preliminary
takeover talks and doubts persisting about the future of several influential
players, including the defenders Sylvain Distin and Micah Richards. City have
had difficulties trying to sign players and the manager admitted last night that
it was becoming an "awkward window".
Pearce, who has described his squad as "thin", wanted
to bring in a left-sided player and a striker. "We've made many, many phone
calls in the last few weeks but the general message is that no one wants to sell
their players," he said. "I dread to think how much time I have spent on the
phone. Everybody wants to buy somebody to shuffle their pack but nobody wants to
sell anyone."
His problems have been exacerbated by the financial
restrictions imposed on him in the wake of Kevin Keegan's free- spending days as
manager. However, it is the number of players who may leave the City of
Manchester stadium which is causing the club's supporters the most
anxiety.